Jesse Eisenberg on Lex Luthor Not Being A "Silly, Villainous Character" in BATMAN V SUPERMAN
It seems like fans are really curious to know how exactly Lex Luthor will be portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg in Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. We have yet to see any footage of the character, so it's hard to know what to expect at this point. However we do hear his voice in the teaser trailer when he says, “We know better now, don’t we? Devils don’t come from hell beneath us, no, they come from the sky.” I just know Eisenberg is an interesting choice for the villain, and I hope he nails it.
In a recent interview with MTV, the actor discusses his expectations for the character, which he says is great, and not a "silly, villainous character."
“The expectations that I have are never the same expectations that an audience has. I don’t have expectations for myself to adhere to a comic book character, but a lot of people are interested in how I would coincide with the comic book character. But it couldn’t be farther from my mind, because I’m just playing a role.
"It’s a really great character that’s written by this guy, Chris Terrio, he’s a phenomenal writer…He loves my character in the same way I love my character. He put a lot of work into it. It’s a great character, there’s an emotional core to the character. It’s not this silly, villainous character. This is a real depiction of a person who thinks these things. So the challenge is to make it seem real.”
When comparing his version of Lex to Gene Hackman's version, Eisenberg says:
“No, that’s an entirely different thing. Also the tone of that movie is so different, that movie wouldn’t be made that way now. The way we expect movies to be now, which is for the best probably, we expect there to be some kind of psychological accuracy. That the person is coming from a place that’s probably diagnosable in some ways. This is not [a winking, knowing movie], this is a real depiction of a person who thinks these things.”
There's no doubt that this movie is going to give fans something they've never seen before. The fact that Eisenberg is talking up the character and writer like this gives me hope that this movie might actually be great.
It has yet to be confirmed, but there's a chance that we'll see Lex also show up in David Ayer's Suicide Squad. Eisenberg enjoyed playing the character so much that he said he would love to do it again in the film, so maybe that will happen. It will be interesting to see how much he'll be included in the cinematic universe that Warner Bros. is building for DC.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice hits theaters on March 25th, 2016.